{"id":29520,"date":"2018-01-09T07:09:49","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T12:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29520"},"modified":"2018-01-09T07:09:49","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T12:09:49","slug":"rational-insanity-the-mad-logic-of-americas-nuclear-doomsday-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29520","title":{"rendered":"Rational Insanity: the Mad Logic of\u00a0America\u2019s Nuclear \u2018Doomsday Machine\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rational Insanity: the Mad Logic of\u00a0America\u2019s Nuclear \u2018Doomsday Machine\u2019<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Photo by The Official CTBTO Photo | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I want to say \u2013 and this is very important \u2013 in the end, we lucked out! \u00a0It was\u00a0luck\u00a0that prevented nuclear war.\u00a0 Khrushchev was rational. \u00a0Kennedy was rational. \u00a0Castro was rational. \u00a0\u00a0[Holding up his thumb and forefinger slightly apart.]\u00a0\u00a0Rational individuals came\u00a0that<\/u>\u00a0close to total devastation of their societies\u2026and that danger exists today.<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara\u00a0\u2013 talking about\u00a0the Cuban Missile Crisis \u2013 in \u2018The Fog of War,\u201d a documentary film by Errol Morris<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cToday we still have over 20 thousand real world nuclear weapons. \u00a0Enough to blow up everybody on the planet several times over. \u00a0Those weapons pose the immediate problem of a danger of terrorism, the immediate problem of the possibility of nuclear war.\u2026\u00a0 I believe we are on the brink of a new nuclear arms race. \u00a0It breaks my heart.\u00a0 Today, the danger of a nuclear catastrophe is actually higher than it was during the cold war. Let me say that again\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Sec. of Defense, William J. Perry, January, 2016\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A nuclear war anywhere will disrupt\u2014and possibly destroy\u2014civilized life everywhere.<\/p>\n

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 55 \u2013 James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang<\/em><\/p>\n

There is such a thing as being too late\u2026. We still have a choice today:\u00a0nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation<\/em>\u2026 Now let us begin\u2026 let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1967<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Present Threat Level:\u2019High\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The current Silicon Valley meme is that Artificial Intelligence, or AI, may \u2013 someday \u2013 pose a danger to human existence.\u00a0 But plain old\u00a0human<\/em>\u00a0intelligence already does pose that threat.\u00a0 And it has for some time.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rational Insanity: the Mad Logic of\u00a0America\u2019s Nuclear \u2018Doomsday Machine\u2019\u00a0 Photo by The Official CTBTO Photo | CC BY 2.0 I want to say \u2013 and this is very important \u2013 in the end, we lucked out! \u00a0It was\u00a0luck\u00a0that prevented nuclear war.\u00a0 Khrushchev was rational. \u00a0Kennedy was rational. \u00a0Castro was rational. \u00a0\u00a0[Holding up his thumb and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5493,17824,16896,581,827,862],"class_list":["post-29520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-counterpunch","tag-doomsday-machine","tag-james-heddle","tag-nuclear-war","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29521,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29520\/revisions\/29521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}